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Because my recent posts are all D&D related, D&D is taking over Caturday this week. Here’s my top ten list of cat-related D&D creatures. WordPress won’t allow me to use descending numbers, so in this case, my favorite will be #10.

1. Sea Cats. Basically, they’re mentioned because there aren’t enough cat-like monsters to fill this list. Kind of funny, though, so they beat out the semi-feline dragonne for the bottom spot.
2. Tabaxi. I’m at least curious about playing a a Tabaxi. As a cat person, I could probably make a good run of it, but I never have. Curiosities don’t get to land high on a list.
3. Displacer Beast. These guys are probably lower on my list than they would be on the lists of most players. I never had the fanboy reaction to them that so many others did. I’m not sure why. They just didn’t do it for me.
4. Tressyms. Clearly, I’m a cat person. What cat person wouldn’t want a flying kitty cat? But I’ve never played one because I don’t play wizards, and the only context in which I’ve seen a player have a tressym is as a familiar. As with Tabaxis, theory doesn’t rank as high as practice.
5. Wemic. Leonine centaurs? How wonderfully majestic. In Sumerian mythology, they were called Urmahlullus, and they appear to be good guys. To my recollection, they’ve been considered neutral in D&D with respect to their alignment, but that certainly doesn’t mean they can’t be played as helpful to a party of PCs.
6. Manticores. Not only do manticores appear in a few of my favorite old-school adventures (ah, nostalgia), but they pose an interesting tactical challenge. Manticores can fly, but even if you nullify that ability, they’re equally dangerous in melee.
7. Tembos. I’m taking some license here and calling these denizens of Athas cats (from the Dark Sun campaign setting). I have doubts that they are; however, much like hyenas are feliforms (catlike) that appear to be canines (doglike) because of the space they occupy in their ecosystem, the Tembo appears roughly like a smilodon. When I first took a look at the stat block in 4e, I knew they were trouble, but when the DM threw one at our party, I realized how little I actually knew. It was hard not to immerse yourself in the gaming moment considering the unspeakable horrors it committed against you. (Unspeakable Horror was a fitting name for one of its 4e powers.) You may have well been fighting a creature three of four levels higher. Sometimes you just want a fight, and this thing delivered.
8. Sphinxes. This creature is right up my alley. My favorite aspect to D&D is solving puzzles, and a sphinx is loaded with them. Encountering sphinxes and being able to circumvent their threat using my real-world wits makes for a great and memorable encounter.
9. Leonines. What’s better than meeting a sphinx? Playing one. Duh. Grexes was my a leonine (anthropomorphic lion) from the Mystic Odyssey of Theros campaign setting, and I presented him as someone with an obsession admiration of sphinxes. He often spoke in riddles, for example asking a greeter at the inn for “that which has four legs but cannot run.” It took a second, but the DM quickly realized I was asking for a table. Maybe Grexes should have made my list of my favorite TTRPG characters.
10. Snuggles. Snuggles was a jaguar, but more to the point was the name I gave to my 4e beastmaster ranger’s animal companion. That was a fun class to play. Super mobile, varied attacks, high damage output, and always able to self-flank using Snuggles, which means he hit fairly often. Snuggles was the shit.

Snuggles wins. YMMV.

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